The Brother's Keeper
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: AU. Who keeps the peace between the Horsemen during wartimes?
1. Chapter 1

* * *

The Brother's Keeper

1945--

Methos jerked awake and let out a scream. He didn't remember where he was and he didn't remember what had happened. He felt tired and could hardly keep his eyes open. His whole body was in pain and it was almost as though he couldn't even move. In fact he could hardly breathe; it was as though his lungs had filled with smoke. He felt somebody grab him and he jerked again.

"Take it easy," he heard Caspian say, "It's not over yet."

He forced his eyes open and looked up at his brother. Where had Caspian come from? Laying his head back against the gravel ground, Methos tried to remember. He had been making his way through Japan and gotten in touch with Caspian who said he would be arriving in Hiroshima on Monday…and his mind scrambled to remember the date. August 6th…oh God, he realized, it _was_ Monday!

Methos looked around and he saw hundreds of dead bodies lying everywhere; most of them had their skin burned black by something.

"You don't look much better yourself right now," Caspian told him, "Hold on, I'll get you out of here."

Methos closed his eyes and felt his brother pick him up and carry him off. He looked around at all the dead and the destroyed homes and the piles of ashes that were still smoking and he remembered. He'd heard the planes overhead and he saw the bomb drop, and he thought he could recall the noise it made when it hit the ground. But after that, he couldn't remember much of anything. Why had he come to Japan? That's what he was asking himself. He had never been fond of the place, or the people for that matter. But, he'd been off on one of his escapades, wandering the world, and Asia just happened to come up during his trip and here he was.

He'd stayed for a while, then contacted Caspian and told him what was going on. Things were looking bad on both ends with the war ongoing and Caspian had told Methos not to try and get out by himself; instead, he would come in and get him and the two could return to the states or Europe or someplace they were more familiar with, together. And as Methos looked at all the bodies scattered across the land that had been singed to practically nothing, and all the clouds of black smoke that were still rising, he wondered just what in the hell they were going to do now.

Caspian got Methos far enough away that they were no longer in the vicinity of the explosion or its aftermath. He got them both in the house and shoved his brother directly towards the bathroom. Once inside, he tore the burnt clothes off of his brother and pushed him into the shower and turned on the taps and had the cold water pouring down on Methos. He screamed and tried to get out but Caspian got in behind him and shoved him against the shower's glass wall. Methos pressed his hands against the glass to balance himself and just moaned and cringed as the water stormed down on him. Caspian watched as the dry blood washed out of Methos' matted hair and down his body, staining the shower's floor before disappearing down the metal drain in the center.

* * *

When Methos woke up again he was in a bed in a white room that looked sterilized. He thought he was in the hospital, but then he looked and saw Caspian standing by the door and he realized it was his brother's current residence, wherever the hell that was.

"What happened?" Methos asked.

Caspian smirked though there was no humor in any of it and he replied, "They did it this time, they've dropped the atomic bomb; 70,000 dead, countless more dying from radiation burns, even more to die still. It's the Atomic Age, brother."

When Methos heard that he laid back against the pillows and lost consciousness.

Three days later the news reported that a bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki as well; 40,000 people dead from the initial blast, the explosion was larger and the mushroom cloud that resulted from it had reached 40,000 feet in height in under eight minutes. When these facts became available over the radio and in the press, it sickened Methos to the point that he absolutely refused to get out of bed. As far as he was concerned, the world was about to end.

Later the word got out that the second bombing had been a mistake; Nagasaki had not been the intended target, rather, Kokura had been.

"A mistake," Methos repeated when his brother told him, "A mistake? 40,000 people dead because of a mistake!? Who's behind this?"

"Hell if I know," Caspian answered as he sat on the foot of the bed, "Some American I think they said."

Methos grumbled, "American, what the hell does that mean anyway? The only Americans there are the Indians. Everybody else who's there came from somewhere else. My God, what the hell is going on out there?"

He laid flat against the mattress again and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and then to his brother with an unmistakable fear in his eyes as a thought came to him. "You don't suppose that Kronos is responsible for this, do you? I mean we lost contact with him a long time ago."

"Come on, Methos, I highly doubt that," Caspian replied, "He may be crazy but not _this_ crazy, do you think?"

"No," Methos realized, "But now that it's been done twice now, it'll happen again, and I wouldn't put it past Kronos to get involved with the matter. You know destruction was always his biggest fascination, no matter how many people are sacrificed, soldier or civilian."

"Death toll for these last two time rings more civilians than soldiers," Caspian told him.

"It almost sounds more like something _you'd_ do than Kronos," Methos observed.

* * *

1967--

Caspian entered the bedroom and saw Methos sprawled out on the bed listening to the radio discussing the day's fatalities from explosions and gunfire over in Vietnam. So far this was turning out to the biggest deathtrap a war ever was since the turn of the century. And to think, the thought entered Caspian's mind, that the troops had been told there would be no war, just training. He strode over to the bed and turned the knob, silencing the broadcaster; Methos looked up at him, not saying a word, but wondering why his brother shut off the report.

"I don't know why you listen to those things," he said, "All they do is make you depressed and then you don't get out of bed for a week."

"I'm an old man," Methos replied, "If I want to stay in bed that's my business."

"Certainly, but what point in it if you can't relax?" Caspian wanted to know, "When the first atom bombs dropped you were convinced that the world was about to end."

"It sure felt like it," Methos said, "Do you ever think about those days?"

"As little as possible," he answered.

"Well I think about them, a lot," Methos said, "I was there, in the explosion."

"I know, I know," Caspian reminded him, "Who do you think pulled your half dead corpse tattooed from top to bottom in radiation burn marks out of the crater?"

"But you weren't _there_," Methos told him, "Not when the bomb dropped, you didn't see it."

"Not as close as you did anyway."

"That was the first time mankind proved it had the potential, and the ability _and_ the know-how, to destroy the world, and everybody in it."

"I know," Caspian said.

"I still wonder if Kronos was involved in any way," Methos commented.

"I know."

"And things aren't getting any better," Methos told him, "After World War II, it was Korea, then the Cuban missile crisis, now Vietnam, what's next?"

"Who says there'll _be_ a next?" Caspian wanted to know as he sat down on the end of the bed.

"That's what I've been thinking about," Methos said, "I think this time it may actually be the end. I almost wish it was, then we wouldn't have to go through this anymore."

"Darwin was wrong," Caspian said to him, "Man's still a beast. 500 million years of evolution hasn't done anything _for_ us or _to_ us. In fact, man's worst than the animal, you know that?"

"I know," Methos nodded his head.

"Animals simply kill each other, no motive, not like humans anyway, they only fight and kill to maintain what is their territory. Humans on the other hand," he guffawed as he went over to the closet, "They have more reasons and motives to kill than there are cockroaches under a foundation. And every last one of their reasons…they're so idiotic and pointless I don't even know there's a word to describe them."

Methos looked at his brother rummage through everything in the closet, "What're you doing?"

"We're getting out of here," Caspian told him.

"And go where?"

"I don't care, I'm getting tired of seeing you lying around in this bed all day," Caspian grabbed Methos by the back of the waistband of his jeans, "Come on."

Reluctantly, Methos got to his feet and followed his brother out the door and into the city, "I hope that this whole mess is over soon."

* * *

2011--

Grunting, Caspian tightened the coat around him as he walked through the cold streets one winter night. He had gotten in contact with Methos in the previous month and the two had agreed to meet; but when the time came, Methos was nowhere to be found. However Caspian had been watching him enough over the years that he had a few ideas where his brother had sneaked off to. He followed the sounds coming from the church in its midnight mass service and had to make his way past dozens of people just to get into the old building.

He remembered the church well; this was where he'd found Methos after Pearl Harbor had been made public knowledge. It was also where most people over 70 years ago had come when air raids and warnings went out, and people thought a nuclear bomb was going to drop on them. For the life of him, Caspian couldn't figure out what it was with his brother and seeking refuge in churches whenever the world seemed to be going to hell. But be it as it was, he soon felt Methos' quickening and knew he was close. He walked down the aisles past a whole crowd of people and noticed the loose stones and missing bricks from the walls and the archways. The place seemed to be falling apart, as it had been since an earthquake hit back in 1954; but it served its purpose to the public nonetheless, so the people kept coming. Caspian found his brother on the floor by one of the front pews, looking unconscious, and half frozen. Methos had no coat and his arms were pressed so tightly against his body they were about to break.

Caspian took off his coat and wrapped it around his brother's cold body and helped him to his feet. Methos seemed to be completely unaware of his surroundings or anything that was going on.

"Come on," he said, "Let's get out of here."

Methos didn't open his eyes and he leaned on his brother the entire time that it took them to leave the church and get home. As they walked up the street, Caspian felt something wet land on him, and he looked up and saw it was starting to snow.

"Hell with it all," he grumbled to himself and pushed Methos to keep him moving up the road.

As soon as the two returned to Caspian's home, he got Methos settled out in the middle of the bed and covered him up. Despite having all the heavy blankets and thick quilts on top of him, Methos tried to burrow even further under the covers to get warm. Caspian went into the kitchen and put a flame under their dinner to heat it up again; while he waited for the stew to boil he went over to the radio and turned it on.

Rolling the knob till it had gone from one tuning end to the other, he was able to get little more than one report after another after another about the possibility of war with Korea starting again. How North Korea was testing its nuclear missiles and could launch one at the United States at any time. Caspian turned it off and then had the mind to shut the small radio away in a drawer. But he knew that would do no good; Methos by this time had to have known all the events that were going on. It was inevitable. Methos was always the first to know something and in the technological age they were living in, there were faster ways to find out what was going on.

The world had been going to hell since day one. But even Caspian would admit things seemed to be looking a lot worse these days. All things considered perhaps Methos was right to act the way he did; but he'd been this way for a long time now and Caspian was running out of ideas of what to do with him.

* * *

The next day came and passed and Methos never woke up. Caspian didn't go out and he didn't take his eyes off his brother. There wasn't much else to do, he was practically a hermit and had been such for some time now. He did however, try to place a couple of phone calls, one to Bordeaux and one to Austria, and nobody answered on either one. He made another call to New York, and still no answer.

Half an hour later Caspian felt the arrival of another Immortal and he headed over to the door. It opened and in stepped a woman a bit shorter than he was with a cropped head of brownish red hair tied up in a rag, wearing an oversized New York t-shirt, sunglasses with green lenses and a pair of cutoff shorts, carrying an overnight bag.

"Hey little housewife," she commented as she entered and removed her glasses and set her bag down, "What's happening here?" She looked over to the bed and saw Methos asleep, "Oh, I didn't know you had company. Is it business or pleasure?"

"Neither," Caspian answered, "My brother."

"Your brother?" she repeated, "Which one?"

"One guess."

"Oh wait, don't tell me," she went over to the bed and turned Methos over so she could see his face, "I know, it's the smart one."

"Correct."

"I know, I know, I'm a day late," she said.

"As always," Caspian replied.

"Well this time I have a very good excuse," she told him.

"Oh I've no doubt of that," he said as he headed towards the kitchen.

"I was at the airport the night before last," she said as she followed him, "And first of all the plane was late, second I was behind this guy who it took a whole half hour before he quit setting off the metal detector…then security comes up and grabs us all, it seems they think somebody on the 719 Redeye is carrying a bomb…so everybody had to open their luggage, take off their shoes, strip down to their underwear, it wasn't a pleasant sight. More men saw my backside in one night than they have in my whole life."

"Yes, but how was your trip?" he asked.

"Ha-ha-ha," she dryly responded, "I tell you, I hate wartimes, it makes life twice as difficult for people."

"Things have been like this even before the war," Caspian reminded her.

"Well they're just getting worse," she said as she walked over to the fridge, "Would you believe it? Christmas day and nobody on any broadcast station talking about the day, about the midnight mass in New York, all they're talking about is the damn Koreans and their missiles."

"And I'm sure over in Korea they've got all their radio reporters going on about the damn everybody else who's going to be at war with them," he said.

"I hope whoever they have at the controls is dyslexic and he blows himself up and the rest of Korea too," his wife replied, "Save us the trouble of doing it…"

"Do us all a favor, will you?" Caspian asked, "Don't start up on this again when he wakes up."

"What's the matter with him?" she asked as she glanced towards the bed.

"That's a long story," he answered.

"Uh huh, and I just got back from 3 months of a vacation away from you, much as I'd like to, I'm not going somewhere else soon," she told him as she twisted the lid off a bottle of beer, "Now about your brother."

"What about him?"

She looked back to the bed and without another word she sprinted halfway across the room and jumped onto the mattress, causing the whole thing to vibrate, which proved effective in waking Methos up. He looked up and saw the woman standing over him.

"Who're you?" he asked.

She held out her hand to him and answered, "Sterling Vidal's the name, and I'm your brother's wife. Apparently he neglected to mention he was married, funny, he's told me plenty about you, Methos."


	2. Chapter 2

"You never told me you were married," Methos said from where he lay in the center of the bed.

"I try to forget it myself," Caspian replied.

"How long have you been married?"

"Ten…no, seventeen…that's not right either…"

At that moment, Sterling came through the room with a change of clothes under one arm.

"How long have we been married?" Caspian asked.

"27 years last Election Day," she answered as she padded over to the bathroom door.

The door slammed behind her, leaving the two brothers to talk amongst themselves.

"Where did you meet her?" Methos asked.

"I'm trying to forget that as well," Caspian said.

"Well since she's back, I guess I'll be bunking on the couch tonight," Methos said.

"_She_ won't mind three in a bed and the four of us slept together for 300 years," Caspian reminded him.

"True."

"Of course _she_ has a few habits you'd probably rather miss out on," he told Methos.

"Like what?" Methos asked, "Eating crackers in bed?"

"No, cake."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"Three day old cake, you ever sit on one of those crumbs? Getting your ass tattooed is less painful," Caspian told him.

"I wouldn't know about that," Methos replied.

Caspian wanted to change the subject. "So what were you doing at the church last night?"

Methos looked up at him, "What church?"

"The one three miles that way," Caspian pointed east, "The one that's falling apart."

Methos looked at Caspian in a completely clueless manner, "I was there last night?"

"Where do you think I found you?" Caspian asked.

Methos looked away, his eyes wide, "I don't know."

"Oh well."

Methos got up from the bed and started over towards the balcony, "I'm going to step out for some air."

"Good luck with that, we're 15 stories up, asphyxiation victims get more air than we do," Caspian told him.

Methos opened the glass doors and closed them behind him and stood out on the balcony taking in the cold winter air.

The bathroom door opened and Sterling came out, "Alright you bastard," she said to her husband, "I've been all over this place and I want some answers. Where're the newspapers?"

"I hid them," Caspian answered.

"Where's the radio?" she asked.

"I hid it."

"Where's my manuscript I was working on?"

"Did you try looking under the chair?" Caspian asked.

"Why are you hiding everything?" she asked.

"Believe me, you're the last person I want to please right now," Caspian told her, "Right now my main priority is my brother."

"What's wrong with him anyway?" she wanted to know.

"Not that it means anything to you but he was in Hiroshima in 1945 when the bomb went off. You don't forget something like that. Now with this…"

He stopped talking when he heard the noise overhead and felt the vibration. They listened as the military jets passed overhead, and when they had gone he continued, "Now with this war starting and everybody going off about the damn nuclear missiles, he's about to lose his mind."

It didn't make sense to her, "Nuclear war isn't something new. How's he lasted this far?"

"It hasn't been easy," he answered.

"Besides," she continued, "Why should it bother him? I thought you said that the four of you were death on horseback. You killed thousands, took out soldiers, women, children, it didn't matter to you."

"Nothing we did back then can compare to what they're doing now," Caspian told her, "When we killed somebody it was quick, effective, immediate, firsthand…now, now they're firing off rockets from halfway around the world. They kill half the victims immediately and the other half succumb to fallout and radiation poisoning over the course of years."

"But you served in the war," Sterling said.

"The first one, sure, we had bombs, we had machine guns, we had poison gas but it still didn't amount to what they're doing now," he told her.

"You think I don't know that? I had to listen to the reports all night on the way back here. They think it's serious this time," she said, "Really serious, they're talking about this time there might be enough fire power in the weapons released to blow up whole continents; kill off entire populations, if that's true then only the Immortals will survive and even some of them aren't going to make it."

"Now you know why he's about to go crazy from what's happening," Caspian said.

"Well…my God," Sterling replied, "That explains it then."

* * *

Methos came in from the balcony and shut the door behind him. He was practically dragging himself along and to Caspian he looked half dead.

"Are you alright?"

"I was just thinking," Methos said as he padded over to the couch and laid down on it, "How long have people been getting radiation poisoning? 65 years?"

"About that," Caspian answered.

"I was just thinking…this far down the road and _still_ nobody knows how to cure it, or even treat it. All they can do is perform transplants and transfusions when the blood and bone marrow becomes too infected. As though they haven't had plenty of time to work on it…"

"You better watch it," Caspian told him, "You're starting to sound delirious yourself."

"I'm fine," Methos insisted, "I just…" he closed his eyes for a second and added, "I need to lie down, I need to rest."

Overhead they both hear the roar of more passing military jets; the noise was so bad it almost sounded like a tornado was coming down.

"Oh God, do I need to rest," Methos said as he laid down on the couch.

Caspian grabbed the heavy blanket lying on top of the couch and draped it over his brother and let him alone to rest.

A short while later, Methos started thrashing around on the couch and was screaming. Caspian grabbed him and shook him to wake him up. Letting out a particularly large yelp, Methos jerked awake and all but jumped on his brother.

"Are you alright?" Caspian asked.

Methos sat on the couch trying to catch his breath for a moment. When he could finally speak he recalled what it was he had dreamt.

"It was night…I was in France, and Kronos was there…in full uniform…he…had a bayonet, and he, accused me of betraying him...he...hereached out and grabbed me and he was…pulling me towards him…he was trying to pull my neck towards the blade…" he looked at Caspian as he remembered, "And you…you shot him so I could get away."

Caspian looked to the side when Methos said that. Both knew that that had been no dream.

"You did shoot him, didn't you?" Methos asked as he realized it.

"We served in the 336th Machine Gun Battalion together; doesn't mean I had to side with him," Caspian replied.

"And he never found out?" Methos asked.

"We went to France to kill the Germans, so I told him it was a German," Caspian said, "Enough of their bodies lying around when he came back around, he believed it."

Something else occurred to Methos as he recalled those events from so long ago, "I never thanked you for that."

"Well don't start now," Caspian told him.

* * *

Sterling came out of the bathroom and padded through the main room in a towel, went over to the dresser near the wall and took out a change of clothes. Methos watched from where he lay on the bed.

"If you need some privacy, I could go out for a while," he offered.

She smirked and said in response, "I've had the misfortune of living with your brother for almost 30 years, you won't bother me."

He looked at her reflection in the mirror over the dresser and asked, "Why did you marry him?"

"Why?" she replied, "You know a reason I shouldn't have?"

"No," Methos answered, "I'm just curious."

She didn't answer Methos.

"Do you love him?" he asked as he got up and walked over to her.

She looked in the mirror and saw his reflection behind her and she turned to him. "If you mean does he make me happy, he hasn't done that since the day I married him."

"Then why do you stay with him?" Methos asked.

"I can't tell you your business, you know your brother better than I do," Sterling told him, "Lord knows he's never been able to make me happy once in all the years we've been married, and not one thing he's ever done has made up for all the heartache he caused me…but that doesn't mean we don't get along."

"Speaking of which," Methos looked around the room, "Where is Caspian?"

"He said the place was getting too crowded so he was going downstairs for a while," she said, "We're not as bad off as we appear, he owns the whole building, that's why there are no neighbors, nobody can complain about the noise. We just happen to live on this floor at the moment."

"Fifteen floors up?"

She nodded, "He's a bit paranoid…talks about he can see intruders on the ground a lot easier from up here. We haven't had any trouble yet."

* * *

That night when they were in bed, Sterling rolled over in the middle and felt behind her and noticed the mattress was cold. Opening her eyes she saw the covers had been pushed back and Methos was gone. She looked around the room and saw him sprawled out on the couch. Looking over at her husband, she was grateful that it was just the two of them because something had been eating at her all night and she had to tell him.

"Caspian," she whispered, when he didn't respond she started poking him in the head, "Hey Caspian, are you awake?"

Two bloodshot eyes glared up at her, "I'm awake now," he answered, "What do you want?"

"I just had a thought," she said.

Yawning, Caspian turned over and said to her, "I'll alert the newspapers in the morning," and pulled the top pillow over his head.

She looked over to the bedside table and saw a plate and a fork laying across the top of it. Picking up the fork, she rammed its four teeth into her husband's backside. A muffled scream came up through the pillows and she saw his shoulders jerk, but aside from that he didn't seem to respond much to it. Removing the pillow, he sat up and turned around to face her and very dryly commented, "You have my attention."

"I was just thinking," she told him, quietly so as not to wake the man on the couch, "You still have ties to your brothers, don't you? The fat one and the stupid one?"

"Yes, yes."

"Have you tried contacting them lately?" she asked.

"Can't get an answer from either side."

"But you don't think they're dead," she said.

"I know they're alive…what is all this about?"

"When was the last time Methos saw them?" she wanted to know.

He had to think, "Silas he last saw about…30 years ago, and Kronos…Methos hasn't seen him since World War I."

"Why?"

"Because the last time they met, Kronos accused Methos of being a traitor and nearly took his head. I had to shoot him so Methos could escape."

"Do you think he'd still be fuming about that now?" Sterling asked.

"I talked to Kronos a while back…he seems to be doing fine for the time being."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"Methos and Kronos can't stay together long enough for anything…if they do, they start fighting amongst themselves and one tries to kill the other one. Unfortunately Methos is always the one getting the life strangled out of him."

"I thought you said the four of you were together for over a thousand years," she said.

"We were, but you don't think that was an easy feat do you?" he asked, "As long as nobody questioned Kronos' authority, he was fine…but as you said, Methos is the smart one, but not too smart because he always took it upon himself to correct Kronos when he thought his plans weren't right. Kronos didn't take well to that at all. After a thousand years Methos couldn't take it anymore, and he wanted to leave. Well, the way Kronos saw it was the only way he could leave was by dying."

"So what happened?" Sterling asked, "He got away."

"That wasn't easy either. Two thousand years down the line I never thought the two would cross paths again. But wouldn't you know, nothing can bring those two together quite like a war. It's in their blood and they're always drawn to it…unfortunately Kronos doesn't forget the past very easily. He would have killed Methos if he could, several times."

"And he never did because you were always the one to keep them apart," she realized, "That's why Methos is here now, because you're still looking after him, _still_ protecting him from his brother."

Caspian wouldn't answer that.

"But do you think Kronos would still be holding onto that grudge by now?" she asked.

"An elephant never forgets."

"Elephants no, but this is the jackass we're talking about," she said, "It might do Methos some good to see the rest of his immediate family, don't you think?"

"I seriously doubt that," Caspian replied as he laid back against the pillows, "Besides, they've avoided crossing paths for almost 100 years, what's a few more?"

Neither said a word for a minute, and then Sterling poked him in his side and asked him, "Do you know why I went to New York?"

"To get away from me."

"That was part of it, but the fact of the matter is that my ex-husband, my first husband, died last week. No family, parents dead, no kids, only child, so it came to me to be the one to bury him. I hadn't seen him for 13 years, I never got in any last words with him. And that got me to thinking…they have been talking for so long now about the war and the missiles and how much they can destroy if they're launched. People are talking about this could be the end of the world if the Koreans plans are carried out. If that's true, and we're living on borrowed time, I think we need to find these guys; get in contact with them and set up a place to meet," Sterling told him.

"They'll never agree to that," Caspian said.

"Well then we're just going to have to go down to Bordeaux and get them ourselves," she told him, "Don't you think your brother deserves that much, to see his whole family again before they're all killed? That's my point, Caspian, we may _not_ have a few more years. It may only be a matter of weeks, days...the whole world could be blown up at any time, and you know that as well as I do."

He did, but neither of them would admit it loudly enough for Methos to hear should he wake up and listen in on their conversation. Neither said a word when they felt the vibrations and heard their belongings in the room shake. More jets were passing by overhead, and what for, nobody could answer. When and where they would land, nobody could say that for certain either. What was going to happen next, nobody knew.


	3. Chapter 3

"Change of location? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Communication broke up before I could get the whole report," Caspian explained to his wife the next morning, "All I know is that Silas has now transferred back to the states under a new identity and is currently working within the military."

"As what?" Sterling asked.

Caspian threw the report at her, "As a captain in the Coast Guard."

"Coast Guard?" she repeated. Looking over the report her eyes widened as it hit her, "Makes sense. They have jurisdiction in international waters as well as our own."

"The question is how to find him now," Caspian said.

Sterling read the assumed name Silas was now living under and an idea came to her. She told her husband, "When I was younger I used to volunteer to be a SEAL, never made it but maybe I can get my friends in the navy to help us out."

"Good luck with that…everybody knows how close people stick to their own group, outsiders aren't appreciated much."

"But you forget," she told him, "During wartimes the Coast Guard is transferred to work for the Navy…meaning we can probably get our boys to throw a line over to where he's working."

Late that morning a few select members of the local branch of the Navy were contacted and soon a message was sent over a straight key to the local members of the Coast Guard:

… _ _ _ …

S OS

_._. ._ _. _ _.._ _. .. . ._. _._. .

C P TN P I ER C E

.._. ._ _ _ .. ._.. _._ _ . _ _ . ._. _ _. . _. _._. _._ _ ._ _ …._ _ _ _ _.

FA M I L Y E M ER G EN C Y A T H O M E

_. . . _.. _._ _ _ _ _ .._ _ _ _ _ _._. _ _ _ _ _ . ._...._._ _.

NEED Y O U T O C O M E ASA P

… .. _ _._.. _.. _._. …_

S I G NED C V

"I know it's sloppy," Sterling explained to the recipients over the officer's radio, "But take it to your captain and he'll know what it means. It's urgent that he returns soon. I know we're going into wartimes but this is one matter of life or death that can't wait."

* * *

"You did WHAT!?" Caspian nearly hit the ceiling when he found out what his wife had done.

"You know as well as I do they don't let men out of the military when we're on the brink of a war, unless it's a damn good reason. So naturally I had to tell your brother it was a family emergency, he'll jump ship for that…and in a way it is…and I signed your name to it because there's no question he'll respond to that.," she told him, "And that's what we need, for him to get here as quickly as he possibly can."

"I could just break your neck," he told her.

Both were quiet when the balcony doors opened and Methos stepped in from the cold.

"What's going on in here?" he asked.

"Nothing," Caspian replied.

"No, we're just having a little discussion," Sterling told Methos.

"And this is the end of it," Caspian told her.

"No it's not," she insisted.

"Yes it is."

Caspian turned to leave, Sterling grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him back around and knocked him right in the face and he fell to the floor.

"Now that's the end of it," she said.

Methos said nothing as he looked at his unconscious brother lying on the floor. Then he looked up at his sister-in-law and asked, "Did I interrupt something?"

"You don't go 27 years in a marriage without a few minor arguments," she said.

"This is minor?"

"For Immortals it is, you should know that."

"I never married one," Methos confessed.

"Too bad, it's more of a convenience than mortals," she told him, "The chances of getting a 3 A.M. phone call from the police asking you to identify your spouse's body drop dramatically. You don't have to worry about drunk drivers, you don't have to worry about muggers, you…"

She was cut off as they heard the low hum of the jet engines as more flew up above. They both looked to the ceiling and Methos looked like he was about to go out of his mind.

Sterling continued, "Machine gunfire, poison gas, nothing happens…there's only one way you can become widowed."

"One way," Methos replied as he kept his gaze skyward, "Several opportunities, another Immortal, hunters, rogue watchers, a bomb, an explosion, the list goes on."

* * *

The day dragged on, both inside and out the atmosphere was cold and dark; the only noise to be heard was the occasional hum of the engines of more passing Air Force jets overhead. Other than that the apartment was as quiet as the dead. They were too high up to hear the traffic passing by in the streets below and as had been explained already, there were no neighbors in the building since his brother owned it. Methos looked around the room trying to figure out how he had gotten here, and what he was doing here. He had never seen this place until yesterday; and he barely knew anymore the people he was staying with. It felt to him as though he had no business here, and he knew he should leave but he just couldn't. He looked around the darkened, basically one room apartment. Caspian had fallen asleep in the middle of the bed and his wife was nowhere to be seen; leaving Methos to himself for the time being.

A cold chill ran through his body despite the heat being on and he decided to brew up some tea. In the kitchen he put the kettle on the stove and dug through the cupboards. He took out a box of teabags and then looked for a cup. Reaching into the back of the top shelf he pulled out a happy hour beer mug that had a stick figure hugging a street lamp. Looking at the picture, it took Methos back to a New Year's Eve party a long time ago.

They had gone out to a bar for the night, and found themselves in the middle amongst about a hundred people who, though the news had been out for months, were celebrating the end of the war. Methos looked around at everybody; some of them were drinking, others were already drunk to the point of singing, others danced, and one table in particular had people ringing noisemakers and throwing confetti everywhere. It was most certainly a scene entirely different than that of the previous New Year. That was why it didn't make any sense. Methos _knew_ that the war was over, that things were different now, that things would start to get better, and yet he felt the same way he had for the past 6 years, as though the war was still ongoing. He looked around and saw all these people; soldiers back from Germany, Warsaw, Omaha Beach, their wives, girlfriends soon to be wives, and he saw how happy they were, and he knew he didn't belong here because he himself was not happy despite how things had turned out.

"Are you falling asleep?"

Not realizing he'd closed his eyes, he looked up and saw Caspian standing by the bar, looking impatient.

"What time is it?" Methos asked.

"About midnight," he answered.

"Good, then soon we can get out of here."

Caspian snorted in response, "Clearly you haven't been looking out the window."

"Six years…six years on this whole bloody war, and now it's over…and how many people dead?" Methos asked.

"On which side?"

"Six million people killed by the Nazis, over 120 thousand dead from the atomic bombs…and how many Nazis are dead in return?" Methos wanted to know.

"Too damn few," was his brother's only answer.

"It's not like the old days," Methos said, "The only thing that never changes is everybody wants to be in power and the more evil a person is, the more they kill for the chance…but everything else is different now."

Caspian grabbed a glass of brandy and commented, "I'll drink to that."

He turned and saw Methos was on the verge of falling asleep again. Caspian threw the booze out of the glass and added, "I don't know why I bother."

Despite all the other distractions in the bar, a noise above all others rang through the room like a gunshot, jerking Methos awake and causing Caspian to about go through the ceiling.

"What happened?" Methos asked.

They looked and saw everybody kissing everybody else and confetti going everywhere.

"Looks like it's 1946, Brother," Caspian replied.

"Fine," Methos tiredly rested his head in one hand and leaned it on Caspian's shoulder and mumbled, "Now wake me up when the world ends."

One of the hat-check girls walked by their spot and Caspian yanked the back of her skirt to get her attention and asked for their coats so they could get out of there. She returned with them and he pulled Methos to his feet and got him into his coat and shoved him towards the door. Somehow, Methos couldn't recall, but they managed to get home and when they did, they collapsed on the couch and didn't wake up until half past the next day.

* * *

Returning his mind to the present, Methos turned off the burner beneath the screaming teakettle and poured some of the boiling water into his cup and let the teabag steep.

Above he could hear more jets, and he just had to wonder; where the hell were they all coming from? And what the hell were they doing up there? If they lived past this war he was giving serious consideration to getting out of there and finding his own place again. It seemed as far back as he could remember, Caspian was always at one time or another, the one stuck with the job of keeping an eye on him. As though he couldn't look after himself; he was over 5000 years for crying out loud, why did he need somebody watching over him?

Age didn't seem to matter though. Anytime something could go wrong it always chose to happen to him, and most times he wasn't able to pull himself out of the fire. Hell with it all, it never mattered how old he got or what he did or where he went or what happened. The world doesn't change, the people don't change, only the details change, even so the fact remained that life was nothing more than one long sick, humorless practical joke. Every time things seemed to go well, something came along to jerk the rug out from underneath you. Every time reason came up to pry yourself out of bed, somebody else died and everything was knocked down all over again.

He went over to the window and looked out; everything was dark, the sky was filled with gray clouds and it looked like it might storm. Well, he thought, it would be suiting given the current situation. He looked down at all the people passing by and he tried to see if he could spot Sterling. It didn't do any good, everybody looked the same; this high up they all looked like insects, a bunch of dots. And from halfway around the world he knew they looked far less significant.

Through one half open eye, Caspian watched Methos pace about the apartment. He had never gone to sleep; he only acted like it so he could see what Methos would do if he thought he was alone, or as close to it. If this bloody war carried on for long, he had a good idea none of them were going to get any sleep. Even after a war had ended, they never seemed to be able to rest. That was something he remembered all too well.

* * *

1947—

Caspian, still half asleep, heard the screams and all but fell out of bed. Opening his eyes he saw the room was dark and he listened and heard where the noises were coming from.

"Here we go again," he grumbled as he made his way in the dark over to the other side of the bedroom.

Methos thrashed around on his bed as he moaned in his sleep. Caspian grabbed him and shook him to wake him up but all that came out of that was they both fell on the floor.

"Well that was fun," he mumbled as he pulled strands of the rug out of his teeth.

Getting to his feet, he kicked Methos and told him to wake up. Slowly he seemed to come around, he looked from one side of the darkened room to the other and amidst the darkness he recognized his brother.

"It happened again, didn't it?" he asked.

The war had been over for two years and still Methos woke up in the night screaming, remembering, remembering above all else, those damn bombs falling.

"I'm sorry," he added.

Caspian grabbed Methos and pulled him up and helped him get back in bed. "Go back to sleep," he told him.

"I'm sorry, Caspian."

"I know, go to sleep."

However that wasn't the last he heard from his brother that night. He wound up that night, as he had plenty of nights before, staying up and listening to Methos' personal accounts of what happened the day the atomic bomb dropped, all the damage done, all the people killed, and considering the number of innocent bystanders killed, how it all seemed to be for nothing.

"At least," Caspian told him, "The war's over and we don't have to think about it anymore."

Even in the dark, Methos looked across the room at Caspian and threw his head back and laughed bitterly, "I wish that were true…but that's not the case. Don't you see? That bomb was the beginning of something…somebody lifted the latch on Pandora's box…and now that the gateway has opened, there'll be more to come. It's just going to get worse…I know it will."

* * *

In the middle of the afternoon, Sterling returned home. Not noticing a third quickening, she asked as she stepped in the door, "Is anybody here?"

"We're here," Caspian answered.

"I'll amend my previous statement," Sterling hung her coat up, "Is anybody important here?"

"Ha ha ha, very funny."

Methos, who was bleary eyed and looked as though he'd just woken up, didn't get it, "What?"

"Never mind," she said.

A few minutes later, all three of them felt another quickening approaching. Caspian and his wife looked at one another in wonder of if who was at the door was the person they were expecting; Methos just looked terrified out of his mind. Sterling went to answer the door but Caspian grabbed her by the back of her shirt.

"You don't know who it is," he told her, "I'll go."

"You'll go, very well, but who's going to protect _you_?" she asked, "I'll go."

She went to the door and demanded to know, "Who is it?"

"Captain Antonio Pierce," was the bellowed reply.

Sterling opened the door and Silas stepped in. Methos' jaw dropped as low as it could and he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Neither could Sterling; she turned to her husband and quietly asked, "This is your brother?"

"Yes," Caspian answered.

"One of the four Horsemen?"

"Yes."

She turned to Methos and asked him, "What'd he do with his horse when it finally died, eat it?"

Slowly, Methos made his way over to Silas, as if to make sure that this was real and he hadn't just lost his mind. "What're you doing here?" he finally asked.

"What am I doing here?" Silas repeated, "I get a message that there is some emergency, so to come to this address immediately…I have no family so I decide to see what the hell is going on. I had a good idea as to who it was that sent the message, and it seems I was right."

"Are you staying long?" Sterling asked.

"For a while, yes."

"Well," Sterling took her coat of the rack and started getting into it again, "Goodbye."

"Where're you going?" Methos asked.

"The market, now that we have this fat ass here," she gestured to Silas, "He's bound to eat us out of house and home within a week."

After the door closed behind her, Caspian advised his brother, "Pay no attention to her, I found her in an electroshock therapy room as a test subject."

"Well now," Methos said, "There's a match made in Heaven, but then again so's thunder and lightning."

* * *

They got Silas and what belongings he'd brought with him settled in the apartment, but Caspian wasn't paying attention to that. He watched the clock; Sterling was gone for two hours. By five o' clock the sky was about as dark as midnight. Finally she returned home and he was down at the curb to meet her.

"What the hell took so long?" he demanded to know.

Even in the dark he could tell by the look on her face she was just as fed up as he was.

"Rations," she told him, "They've rationed everything because of this stupid war, just like when we went after the Germans. So much food allowed per person, per family…did you hear anything about this?"

"No."

"Neither has anybody else, apparently they just decided on that today," she said, "That place was a snake pit. Everybody rushing through the place, bashing into everybody else, trying to get their hands on all they were allowed to take…I haven't seen a riot like that since the blackouts in the 70's. And that's not all. On my way back here I thought we were having an earthquake, everything started shaking and jumping…only, surprise, there's nothing abnormal going on down here on the ground."

"Already I can tell I'm not going to like what I hear," Caspian said.

"Come here."

He followed her up to the corner which was part of the hill on that street. From there they were able to get a better view at the sky past the buildings. At first Caspian couldn't figure out what she was going off about now, but then he felt it. He could a low rumble beneath his feet and it was growing quickly. Then he heard the noise; the horrible noise that nearly shot out his eardrums.

"What in the hell is that?" he demanded to know.

"Look," Sterling pointed upwards.

He saw what she saw. Through the darkness and the clouds, he saw what must have been about a hundred jets passing overhead; all of them staying very close to one another.

"My God," he barely got the words out. Since word had gotten out that another war would soon begin, he had never seen the military bring out anything close to these proportions.

"You don't take that many planes out at one time for training," Sterling told him, "The war's about to begin, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after. Time's run out for us, Caspian, we can't wait any longer, we have to find Kronos."


	4. Chapter 4

That night as everybody tried to sleep, Sterling turned on her side in the bed and felt somebody beside her. Opening one eye she saw it was Methos this time, and it was then that she heard a noise from over by the wall. Turning her head sharply, even in the dark she saw Caspian taking things out of the dresser drawers and putting them in a suitcase. Sterling put her hand under Methos to slip away from him without the sudden move waking him up, and she went over to her husband and all but jumped on his back.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked in a low voice.

"I'm leaving tomorrow to find Kronos," he replied quietly.

"The hell you are," Sterling said, "You're not leaving me here alone to baby-sit Harpo and Zeppo while you go find Groucho."

She grabbed him by his collar and jerked him to the side. He grabbed her wrist and pushed her back and resumed packing his things. Sterling jumped on his back and the two fell to the floor.

The thud which resulted when their bodyweight met with the carpeted ground beneath them, woke Silas up from where he lay on the couch. Sitting up, he looked to the other side of the room to see what the noise was. He saw his brother, Caspian, and his wife, rolling around on the floor trying to pin each other down. An amusing thought in his head, he smiled to himself and laid back down, pretending to be dead to the world as the two spouses continued their rough housing.

Each had their hands locked on the other's wrists and the two spun around on the floor like a couple of chickens with their heads cut off, each trying to knock the other flat to the floor. Sterling reached up and grabbed a lamp from off the dresser and was about to brain Caspian with it but she knew the noise would wake up the others.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Caspian wanted to know.

"You're _not_ going to get on a plane leaving for half way around the world and leave me here to make sure those two don't burn the house down," Sterling told him.

"Why not?"

"Because if _I'm_ the one here with them, we _will_ burn the house down," she told him, "You stay with Heckle and Jeckle, I'll go get your brother."

She scrambled to her feet and went to get her own suitcase but Caspian jerked her by the back of her long nightshirt.

"Excuse me?" he asked, "What makes you think he'll go with you? He's never even met you."

"So what? I never met him but I'll know him when I see him," Sterling said.

"He'll never listen to you."

"And he would you?" she replied, "You said the two of you served in World War I together, didn't you?"

"336th Machine Gun Battalion," Caspian recalled proudly.

"Kill any Geris?"

"Plenty of them."

"Then they awarded you for it, didn't they?" Sterling asked him.

"Sure they did, so what?"

"Do you _still_ have the medal?" she asked, tired of beating around the bush.

He finally saw where she was going with this.

"Almost forgot," he said. He went back over to the dresser, opened the second drawer down, took out a small metal box, removed the lid and took out the honorary badge pinned to him when they returned from their service in the battle.

"Then it's settled," Sterling told him, "Tomorrow I'll go to the airport, you stay here and make sure Methos doesn't do anything crazy."

"Crazy as opposed to what?" Caspian asked, "Ever since he got here that's all he's been."

"_He's_ crazy?" she repeated, "I think those doctors used a few volts too many when shocking you."

* * *

When Methos heard the news early the next morning, he looked as heartbroken as an abandoned puppy.

"You're leaving?" he repeated the report given him, "But you just got back."

"I know, I know," Sterling said as she fastened the latches on her suitcase, "But I'm a writer and I have to get my next manuscript sent off to my agent, who right now is getting the taste of something Japanese and it ain't fried grasshoppers. The publishers don't stop for a war, you know that."

"But are you going to be alright, flying to Japan with the war about to start?" Methos asked.

"Honey, believe me it's easier for me to go there than for them to come here," she told him, "Now I'll be back by the end of the week, and until then, do what your brother says and _don't burn down the house while I'm gone_," she added in a tone mocking Caspian's.

"I wish you didn't have to leave," he said, "I've enjoyed getting to know you."

"Same here, I'm relieved to know the whole damn family isn't like your brother," she said, "But I'll be back in a few days. Besides, I'd think after all you've been through, you'd want some time alone to catch up with your two brothers."

"Speaking of which," Methos looked around and noticed the apartment was empty except for the two of them, "What happened to them?"

"Caspian said something about picking something up before the snow started again," Sterling told him, "I'm going to get a strong drink before I go, they're always so stingy on the planes with their booze." She glanced at him, "You could probably use one too…when was the last time you had good strong drink?"

Methos tried to think, "I can't remember."

"It's especially not any easier to do today when they outlaw the _good_ stuff and only allow it when you can't drink it," she led him over to the kitchen and opened a door that he had thought led to the broom closet. There was a wine rack in it filled almost from top to bottom with large bottles of different things.

"Here we have something no home should be without but most of them are," she said, "Your brother and I are avid collectors of the 150-200 proof varieties. Grain alcohol, vodka, moonshine, you name it we probably got it socked away. Let's see, it'll probably take the plane 14 hours to reach Japan so…" she took out a bottle of grain alcohol, "You want a drink?"

"No thanks."

"Oh yeah that's right, your brother told me you mainly just stick to beer," Sterling opened another door next to the one with the wine rack and it revealed a pile of empty beer bottles that stood nearly three feet high, "We go through a bit of it ourselves…but to make it through this old life you have to be half lit, I say."

Methos couldn't believe his eyes.

"What do you have all those bottles for?" he asked.

"Oh we use them for our own recreational purposes in the winter when it snows too much to get out," she told him.

"What, target practice?"

"No, bowling," she replied, "Cleanup's a pain in the butt, but it's something to do."

Methos laughed at her explanation and said, "I wish I were going with you."

"No you don't," Sterling shook her head, "It's very cold right now, it's a long flight, it's the middle of winter, the plane will be jumping the entire time, if you didn't already get airsick you would…then it's very cold over there and they don't serve anything but rice with raw fish and chocolate covered bugs….I'll grant you it's not much better staying here with your brother, but you don't want to come with me, believe me."

"I have one more question before you go," Methos said, "How long have you known my brother?"

"Too damn long," she replied, "I'm not as old as he is but in all the time I've known him I feel I should be old as dirt."

"How old are you?"

"I don't remember," she said, "All I know is that I was raised in a Yana tribe."

Methos looked surprised to hear that.

"What? Indians like red hair, as long as you have dark skin," she told him, "But that was a long time ago and they're all dead now, only I remain…me and my little ol' tomahawk, but that's a story for another time. I've got to get going if I'm going to catch that plane. Try and have a good time, I'll be back by Friday."

He sincerely hoped she was right, but he was starting to have his doubts.

* * *

The day passed quietly and coldly. For some reason even Methos didn't understand, catching up with his brothers about what was going on didn't appeal to him. All he did the whole afternoon was sit by the window and look out at the snow that slowly fell and turned the whole block white over the course of a few hours. He hated snow, he hated the cold, he couldn't even remember why he had come back to this town, this part of the country. Why this country anyway? Why for once couldn't he have Caspian come to where he was where it was warm and the sun was out and the sky was blue, not gray and dreary?

But no, every single time the two planned to meet, it was always Methos packing up his things and traveling halfway around the world when he would rather do anything else; which is why he was thankful they didn't meet up too often. There was something to be said for not getting along with your sibling often.

Caspian watched Methos in his almost comatose state as he hardly moved and just continued looking out the window. Caspian didn't say anything because he didn't know what _to_ say, and he wasn't sure Methos would hear him even if he did. It looked to him as though his brother were not watching the weather outside, but rather was looking past it, past the buildings across the street, past everything in his view. But what was he looking towards? That was the question, and unfortunately there was most likely no answer. That was generally how these things tended to work.

He crossed over towards the kitchen and picked up a boning knife from the counter. The tip of the blade glared against the overhead light and when Caspian saw it, he didn't see the knife. He saw the bayonet he used when the war first started. He and Kronos had been separated from the rest of the Battalion when they first arrived overseas and they had gotten lost in a horrible storm. They found themselves on the wrong side of the battlefield and had to work their way back to the Allied lines. The only weapons they'd had at the time were two rifles with bayonets they'd collected off a couple of other soldiers.

At the time it had disappointed Caspian somewhat that of all the people they killed during that time, he didn't tear into as many with the bayonet as he had hoped for. Nothing, he'd said time and again, could draw blood quite like a sharp blade could. He had to laugh, he and his brother didn't join the war forces for the same reason every other idiot did. It wasn't for the battle or the patriotism or even the glory. No, they joined in the war efforts because they didn't have anything better to do and they knew a war was one place where they didn't stick out from the others. That, and because neither were feeling too sympathetic towards anybody, but especially not the Germans. The only mission in war was to kill the enemy and that was their life's work, just the details and the weaponry were different that time.

He'd spent three days inhaling the poison gas; the stuff that would turn other men into deformed freaks of nature for the rest of their days. Though his immortality made him immune from long term side effects of anything, he swore it contributed to how unusual he was feeling at the time. Everything he saw seemed to be going around in circles. Every other minute he heard another explosion from off in the distance; and too many was the time that he fell down a shell hole and found he was intruding on somebody else down there. He hadn't eaten in three days and he hadn't slept in five, even he was about ready to fall down the next shell hole he found and wait for either the war to end or somebody to blow up Germany. But the next thing he knew, he could feel Kronos' quickening nearby and went to see if his brother was faring any better.

When he found Kronos, it was with great shock that he found they had an unexpected visitor. Methos was there. Kronos had him by the throat and was screaming at him. Methos tried to pull Kronos' hand off his neck but Kronos always had been the stronger of the two. Kronos appeared to be so wrapped up in the fury that was consuming him as he screamed at Methos and tried to pull him towards the bayonet's blade, that he hadn't noticed another quickening coming up behind him.

Methos wasn't pleading with Kronos, he'd never do that, but he was trying to say something, something that Kronos wouldn't give him the pleasure of finishing. He saw Methos' neck coming closer and closer to the blade despite his struggle.

At the time, and even now that he looked back on it, he wasn't sure if he purposely pulled the trigger, firing the shots into Kronos' back, or if it was just an instinctive reaction in him. Kronos fell down and died before he had a chance to see who shot him, and Caspian ran over to Methos.

"What are you doing here?" Methos asked, looking like he didn't have any idea anymore what was going on or even where he himself was.

"Get out of here," Caspian told him, "Now!"

Methos knew it wouldn't take long for Kronos to revive, so he did. A few years later after the war had ended, and the two brothers had met up again, it never occurred to Caspian to ask what Methos was doing in the middle of the war when it was obvious he was not fighting for either side. In all the years to follow, he _never_ asked why Methos was there. Did it even matter anymore? he asked himself as he put the knife in the rack where it belonged. Then the answer came to him as he looked back at the blade: maybe. There was definitely something he was overlooking here; there was some reason why Methos was still like this, he just had to find out what it was.

* * *

The whole apartment seemed to shake and rattle as a near deafening noise could be heard even six floors beneath the roof. Caspian, who had never been one to panic, took the whole ruckus as a sign that the building was falling apart and he ran out of the shower and had just narrowly gotten into his robe by the time he was in the living room. What in the hell was going on? There were no tornadoes in winter…earthquakes on the other hand…he stuck his head out the window and didn't see anything else shaking…then it hit him what the noise was and he looked up. All the other jets that they had seen passing overhead in the previous weeks were so small they were almost impossible to see. This one was flying so low and from Caspian's point of view, looked so large, he could almost read the numbers on it as it flew by.

If he could get his hands on the idiot who was in that cockpit, he'd choke the life out of that bastard, he just knew he would.

He was brought out of his thoughts as he heard a strange, almost animalistic noise from somewhere in the apartment. He turned around and got his answer as to what it was when he saw Methos curled up in a ball on the bed, apparently having some kind of weird dream because he was chewing on his pillow and grumbling something as he did so. Caspian went over to the bed and woke Methos up.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Caspian pointed to the pillow beneath Methos that was now missing its corner and said, "If you're hungry you should've said so."

Methos saw what he'd done and his eyes widened, and he pulled a couple of feathers out of his mouth.

"I think I'm going crazy," he said.

Funny, Caspian had said the same thing last night but did anybody listen to him? No.

"At least you're in good company," he told Methos.

Methos looked worried, "That doesn't help." It was then that he noticed what his brother was wearing and that didn't help the current matters any; although Methos about died trying to keep from laughing. Caspian didn't see what was so humorous and demanded to know. Methos couldn't breathe as he laughed and he found that to be his saving grace from having to point out that Caspian had obviously, Methos hoped it was obviously anyway, put on his wife's robe by mistake.

* * *

The only thought going through Kronos' mind at the time was that he had to get some sleep. He'd been up for five days listening to those damn reports coming over the radio every few minutes about Korea about to start a war against America. Fine, he thought, go to war with them, blow the continent to hell, just do it and get it over with and shut up already.

As he walked along the street in the night, he didn't pay attention to the bright lights or the people or anything. He didn't notice anything or anybody until he felt another quickening.

"Mr. Kellaway, Mr. Kellaway!" he heard somebody calling him.

But he was so tired he was already about asleep, and the only thing he could think to say in response was, "Who wants to know?"

"Mr. Kellaway!" whoever was calling him was right on top of him.

He opened his eyes and saw a woman standing in front of him.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"You're Wallace Kellaway aren't you?" she asked.

"So I am, who wants to know?"

"Your brother sent me to get you."

Kronos about replied with 'I have no brother', but then it hit him what she meant. But, she couldn't possibly…

"My brother?"

He looked at the woman and tried to figure out who she was. He'd never seen her before a day in his life.

"Your brother," she repeated and held out her hand.

He looked down and saw something that answered his question. It was an old military medal that had been awarded to Caspian when they came back from Germany during the war. He looked back up at the woman and still did not know who she was, but he knew who she was talking about.

"My brother," he said, finally understanding, "And what does he want?"


	5. Chapter 5

The night air was filled with the odors of gunpowder, fire, burnt flesh, and most of all, death. Most of the sounds of war had died down save for the low hum of warplanes off in a distance. It was dark but the moon which poked through the black clouds from time to time, shone light down onto the snow covered, blood soaked battlefield. Dead soldiers to the left, dead soldiers to the right, and their discarded weapons thrown several feet from their bodies, buried halfway in the snow, broken or burning up in the aftermath of the battle.

Methos looked at all this through the eyes of a man who had not slept for days, and may never sleep again. His eyes burnt from fatigue and from being around all the smoke and the poison gas, and everything else he'd endured these last few days. Every inch of him hurt, it was like somebody had beaten every inch of his body with a steel club and his skin felt as though it should be black and blue all over. He couldn't even recall the day's events but he knew it didn't matter. He'd been stuck in the middle of this damn war for too long now. Every day was like the other; explosions, gunfire, bloodshed, bodies piling up, and the roar of those damn warplanes that flew overhead.

The noise of the planes was starting to grow louder. Methos looked up and saw a large bomber plane up above. How it had just seemed to come out of nowhere, he didn't know. He was frozen with terror as he watched it circle around, gain more altitude, and open its doors and drop out a series of bombs that fell towards the earth. At the same time, Methos heard clear as day, though it was off in a distance, the whistling of a shell flying through the air and he knew what was to come next. All he could do was look upward and ask himself 'why?' as the shells hit the ground and the ear-shattering explosions began.

He shot up in bed and looked around at a pitch dark room. Remembering that he was with his brothers in the city, and not back in Germany, he let out a sigh of relief. He was cold, pushing back the covers he realized he was covered in perspiration. Oh what a horrible nightmare. After that he had no desire to go back to sleep and perhaps have the same dream. He got out of the bed and tried to figure out what he was going to do now. The clock by the bed read 2:45 in the morning. He didn't want to wake up the others so he just padded across the room to the window and looked out. The snow seemed to have let up a bit. The sky was pink and purple and that light made the snow outside glitter like crystals. It would look beautiful if it didn't remind him of being in Germany during the war.

* * *

The morning light shone on his closed eyes and let him know it was time to wake up. Silas pushed back the covers and swung one foot over onto the floor. Only when he put it down, he could clearly feel a set of human ribs beneath it. Sitting up on the couch, Silas looked down and saw Methos asleep on the floor right next to the couch. This wasn't something new. In fact this was an age old tell-tale sign that Methos had had a nightmare. In their early days together, when that happened, he always went one of two places, either to his tent or Caspian's. He supposed it was true what they said, old habits die hard. He got up from the couch, reached down, got Methos to his feet and walked him back over to the bed and got him back in beside Caspian. Drawing the covers up on his brother, he grabbed his things, went over to the bathroom and made himself presentable for the day.

Looking out the front window he saw that it had snowed through the night and the block looked like the inside of a bottle of liquid paper. He decided he'd better find out exactly how _much_ it had snowed so he got on his coat and headed out the door. When it closed, the noise woke Methos up and his eyes had to get adjusted to the light. As he lay in bed, casually looking around the room, he realized something.

"Caspian."

"What?"

"Are you awake?"

Through eye one he looked at Methos and answered, "Well I'm awake now, what do you want?"

"What time is it?" Methos asked.

Caspian grabbed the clock and read it, "Going on nine."

"Do you hear that?" Methos asked him as he sat up.

Now Caspian was worried Methos _had_ lost his mind. The whole apartment was as quiet as the dead.

"I don't hear anything," he answered as he sat up as well.

Methos looked at him, "Exactly."

"What are you talking about?"

"Today is the first day since I got here that I don't hear those damn jets," he said, "It's quiet now."

Caspian hadn't thought of it, but now that Methos had mentioned it, he was right, it had become quiet now. Methos was relieved because it meant they wouldn't have to hear the roar of the engines directly overhead anymore. But Caspian wasn't as enthusiastic about it because he knew, and he was sure Methos had to know too but just tried not to think about it, that that meant that all the troops had been shipped out, and the war would be starting at any time now.

* * *

"There's something I want to know," Caspian said to Methos later that day, "What _were_ you doing in Germany during the first World War? Do you even remember?"

Methos thought about it for a minute and shook his head, "I can't recall…" he pointed to his temple, "My memory's eroded."

"I don't buy that, Methos," Caspian said.

"No?"

"No, you've always forced selective amnesia on yourself to try and forget what you don't want to remember," he replied, "You've always done that."

"I'm still trying to make it work," Methos said, "I don't know why I was there. I didn't want to be there, I didn't want to be anywhere I could be reminded of the damn war. I certainly didn't want to be stuck in the middle of it."

"And how did you find Kronos?" Caspian asked.

"I didn't," Methos insisted, "He found me."

"I should've guessed."

"And from there, it was like 2000 years had never passed. He was still furious with me, still screaming at me, calling me a traitor for leaving him."

"Boy if we could tie him down to a psychiatrist couch," Caspian noted, "Some headshrinker somewhere could have a field day with him."

Methos' eyes were wide with fear and recollection as he relived what had come next, "If you hadn't come when you had and shot him…he…he would have taken my head. I'm sure of it, he never could bring himself to do it before but as angry as he was the last time we met...he would have."

"Don't start again," Caspian warned him, "That was almost a hundred years ago."

"Time passes, the details change, but not Kronos," Methos responded, "He never does."

"Maybe not."

* * *

That night the three men were asleep in the apartment and for once everything was quiet. Well, almost. Silas woke up when he heard the floorboards creak and he looked and saw Methos walking across the room, but he didn't seem to be aware of where he was going. Silas picked up a paperweight from the coffee table and threw it at the other lump in the bed and hit Caspian.

"What is it now?" he wanted to know.

"Look."

Caspian got up and saw Methos heading for the door. He opened the door and went out into the hall. Caspian and Silas got up and went after him. Caspian lost his footing at the top of the stairs and fell down them to the 14th floor. Silas stood at the top of the railing and he couldn't resist asking, "Did you fall down the stairs?"

"Yes you idiot," Caspian called up.

"Did you get hurt?"

"No!"

"You never _could_ do anything right," Silas commented.

Caspian grabbed hold of Methos when he came down the stairs and Caspian realized what they had assumed upstairs; he was sleepwalking. He turned Methos around and pushed him back up the stairs to the 15th floor.

"Have a nice trip?" Silas asked.

"Shut up," Caspian replied, "Help me get him back in there."

They pushed Methos back into the apartment and back into bed and Caspian all but buried him under the covers so he'd have to burrow through them to get out again.

"What's the matter with him?" Silas asked.

"I don't know, I…" Caspian saw how quickly the covers were rising and dropping. He pulled them down and stuck his hand on Methos' chest and felt the heart that if possible, could burst out of his body within a moment's notice.

"What is it?"

The rate Methos' heart was beating at about made Caspian sick. It felt like somebody had stuck him with a dozen needles filled with adrenaline.

"I don't know," he answered.

* * *

Sterling, Kronos and about a hundred other passengers had gotten off the plane, collected their luggage and waited for the green to leave their faces and their stomachs to stop jumping around as they made their way through the airport gates and headed for the street. It was going on 7 o' clock in the morning and they all had had a night from hell that was about to drive even Kronos out of his mind.

"That," Kronos said, still fighting back the urge to vomit, "Was absolutely…God awful."

"Sixteen hours in the air," Sterling recalled, "And not a second of smooth sailing during any of it."

"And what point was it at that the whole damn plane turned upside down?" Kronos asked.

Sterling laughed, "Gotta admit though, that got us one hell of a peep show from that stewardess."

Kronos laughed once before returning to his nauseated demeanor, "That was horrible."

"I'll concur," Sterling told him, "I haven't felt so airsick since my first husband proposed to me back in 1931."

Kronos stopped, turned around and looked at her, "I don't get the connection."

"We were in an autogiro at the time!" she screamed at him.

"Oh…so now where do we go?"

"I left my car parked a couple blocks up the road from here," she said as she got ahead of him, "Can't leave it down here with a foot of snow covering the street. I hate the snow…looks like something else the city will be covered in before too long."

"Which is?" Kronos asked.

Sterling stopped in her tracks and Kronos walked into her back. She turned around to face him and replied, "Ash."

Kronos turned back around and looked at the buildings that were almost completely white from the snow. He hadn't really thought about it, but she was right.

* * *

It was going on eight o' clock in the morning and Methos still hadn't woken up. All through the night his body had been covered in perspiration and his heart had continued to pound against his chest like a jackhammer on concrete. So, despite still being unconscious, Caspian shoved some tranquilizers down his throat that were guaranteed to slow down everything; and this morning he was still sleeping them off.

"How much did you give him last night?" Silas asked.

"Not quite enough to kill a horse," Caspian answered somewhat absentmindedly, "He should come out of it in a few hours."

Though the windows were closed, both men were able to hear a car's engine from down below. Looking out the window, Caspian recognized the car and he saw the two people get out of it.

"Son of a bitch, she actually did it."

"What's that?" Silas asked, not quite able to make out the two people from 15 floors up.

"That? That's the beginning of the end," Caspian told him as he made a beeline for the door, "Come on."

Silas had no idea what the hell was going on but he followed Caspian down to the first floor just as Sterling came in the front with Kronos right behind her.

"Look what followed me home," Sterling said to Caspian, "I've no use for him, do you?"

"Caspian, what's going on?" Kronos asked, "Why did you send _this thing_ to get me?"

Caspian went over to his estranged brother and noticed something didn't look quite right.

"What happened to your face?" Caspian asked.

"I just finished kissing the pavement outside," Kronos said and he pointed to Sterling, "That thing's your wife?"

Caspian turned around slowly and glanced at her. What had she done now?

"Yes," he slowly answered, "Why?"

"Where did she learn how to drive?"

"I didn't know she could."

Kronos looked about ready to crawl out of his skin when he heard that one.

"Well," she said, "I wanted to get home before it started to snow again…or, the bombs dropped, whichever occurs first."

"Well," Kronos turned to her, "Since you dragged me 5000 miles across the globe, where do I unpack?"

"We live up on the 15th floor," Sterling told him.

Kronos looked up the long stairwell and he looked about ready to kill somebody.

"15 floors up and no elevator, why am I not surprised?"

"Just a minute, you can't go up there," Sterling said.

He turned back to her, "You just said…"

"I know what I said but you can't go up there," Sterling told him.

"I don't know what kind of joke this is but I'm not amused," Kronos said, and he started up the stairs.

Caspian and his wife grabbed Kronos from behind and pulled him back, knocking him down the stairs and onto the floor, after which they both sat on him to pin him down.

"Some people just won't listen to reason," Sterling noted.

* * *

Methos could feel the light shining against his eyelids. It was too warm to be the sun so he knew it had to be from the overhead lights. He didn't know what time it was or even what day it was but he didn't care because it was finally quiet. And though it _was_ quiet, for the first time since he'd arrived back into the states, he still had the unusual feeling that he wasn't alone. Something told him that there was somebody else in the room, and that they had been there for quite a while.

Opening his eyes, he looked across the room and his immediate reaction was of fear and panic as he saw Kronos standing by the door looking at him.

At first Methos thought that he was seeing things, but he knew that this was real. He tried to get up but he felt paralyzed with fear. Kronos looked at his brother and laughed, and it became obvious that something, though Methos didn't know what, was striking him as being very amusing at this time.

"It's been a long time," he said as he walked over towards the bed, "How're you feeling?"

It slowly dawned on Methos that he wasn't about to be killed. That this Kronos was different from the one he met in Germany a century before. He still wasn't sure that he could trust the man standing three feet away from him but he knew he had to say something.

"Wh--wh—how long have you been watching me sleep?"

"Oh I got in a couple of hours ago," Kronos answered, "I hear you've been better."

Methos tried to respond but he couldn't put one damn sentence together. All he managed to get out was a grumbled, "Uh, yeah…" and he looked away. He glared back at Kronos through the corner of one eye and asked him, "What are you doing here?"

"That's what I'd like to find out," Kronos replied as he sat down on the side of the bed, "You'll never believe what I went through to get here and still nobody's told me why I was sent for."

"Well…" Methos slowly and cautiously reached over to Kronos before placing his hands on his brother's ribs and leaning against him, "I'm glad you're here."

Kronos looked down at his brother and smiled. "So am I, Methos…I think we've been apart from each other for too long."

A hundred years come and go and still those words immediately sent chills of ice up Methos' back. Both men felt the presence of other Immortals and a second later the door opened and Caspian, Silas and Sterling came in. That, where Methos was concerned, was a saving grace, because despite the fact that he still loved his brother; he honestly didn't know what might happen if he and Kronos were left alone for too long, given that Kronos was wont to hanging onto scars from old wounds. Methos quickly but subtly got off of the bed and went across the room to Caspian, putting a distance between Kronos and himself.


	6. Chapter 6

As the day turned into the afternoon, tension was already running high within the apartment among the now five occupants. Caspian started to question if in a previous life there had been five brothers instead of four because his wife seemed to get along with Kronos about as well as he did with Silas, not at all.

Sterling had brought up the question of the new sleeping arrangements, to which Kronos had more than one fresh idea. Sterling turned to her husband but before saying a word to him, she started ransacking the cupboards in the kitchen, "Where's my frying pan?"

He jerked her by the collar of her shirt, "No you don't."

"Fine," she pushed his hands away, "I know just where we can put your brother."

"Where?" Kronos asked.

"On the floor like any animal," she answered, "Try and climb into bed with us and I'll reintroduce you to the feeling of a bayonet below the belt."

Caspian grabbed her from behind and throttled her, "That's enough out of you."

"So this is the married life," Kronos observed from where he sat in the living room, "Glad I never bothered with it."

"You won't need to," Caspian replied, "Being stuck in the house with this thing a few days will give anybody enough of a married life."

"Well if you hate her so much," Kronos said, "Why don't you leave?"

"For one thing," Caspian answered, "Homicide is too messy…divorce is even messier…"

"And third," Sterling added, "He knows he can't get away from me." She crept up behind her husband and heated up his ear as she added, "Your ass would be back in asylum so fast your head would spin, and you know it."

"Oh yes," Kronos said as he found a newspaper stuffed under the chair and started reading it, "It shouldn't get tired living in the same room with _this _every day."

Sterling grabbed Caspian by the hair and turned his head around to see Kronos had found the newspapers. Methos hadn't seen it because he was stepping out onto the balcony. As he did that, Sterling and Caspian crossed over to the living room, he stepped behind the old chair Kronos was in and Sterling flicked the lever on a cigarette lighter and set fire to the front page. Kronos saw the pages turning dark and he about threw it down.

"What in the hell?"

Caspian snatched the paper from Kronos' hand, stomped out the section that was burning, crumbled it up and tossed it behind him. Kronos looked up at his brother, then forward to his wife, and he concluded, "Married people are weirder than I remember them being."

* * *

As the hours passed it was finally settled about the sleeping arrangements. Caspian, Sterling and Methos would keep the bed, Silas would stay on the couch, and Kronos, until somebody could come up with a better idea, slept on floor in the middle of the living room. Unfortunately, sleep didn't appear to be on the agenda for that night. Kronos turned on one side, then the other, and then tried to bury himself under the pillows and the covers, but it still couldn't drown out the noise he was hearing from the corner of the room.

"What in the hell are you two babbling on about?" he asked.

"I was just saying to your brother," Sterling said, "If the Koreans had any brains at all they wouldn't go to war against us with those nuclear missiles we hear so damn much about. It doesn't make any sense."

"It makes sense to me," Caspian said, standing his ground.

"Which should be self explanatory in why it's a _stupid_ idea," Sterling told him.

"I thought I left Japan to get _away_ from people screaming all the time," Kronos said, "It seems I just moved closer to it."

Kronos turned over and looked towards the bed in the middle of the apartment and he noted it was empty. "Hey," he said, "We're missing somebody."

"What?"

Caspian and Sterling looked and saw Methos wasn't in bed, and they hadn't noticed him anywhere else in the apartment. Sterling looked to the balcony doors and turned her husband's head around to see what she saw; Methos was standing on the ledge!

He ran onto the balcony and grabbed Methos from behind just as he was about to jump off and the two fell back against the floor. Methos put up a struggle but Caspian managed to wrestle him back into the room. Sterling closed the doors behind the two and she bolted them; Caspian knocked Methos to the floor and saw his eyes were open, but they were glassy.

"What the hell was that about?" Kronos asked.

"He did it again," Caspian noted.

"Did what again?" Sterling asked.

"He was sleepwalking the other night."

"Sleepwalking? Methos?" Sterling said, "Damn somnambulism." She knelt down and poked her husband in the shoulder repeatedly until he turned to look at her. "When you bought this place did the realtor say anything about anybody by the name of Caligari living here previously?"

"Shut up and help me get him back to bed," Caspian said.

He got on one side of Methos and she got on the other and they lifted him to his feet and walked him back over to the bed.

"We ought to put a bell around his neck," she said.

"Did he try jumping off the balcony last night too?" Kronos asked.

"No," Caspian replied, "He went down to the 14th floor."

"Oh great," Sterling said as she plopped down beside Methos and pressed her weight against him, "So what do we do with him?"

"Tonight? Nothing providing he stays in bed until morning," Caspian answered as he got in on the other side, "I'll figure out what to do with him tomorrow."

"Oh joy," she dryly responded, "This is what I left the city for? Living in an enclosed space with four morons, one of whom is going to spend a better part of tomorrow get his head shrunk by the original whack job."

"Shut up and go to bed," Caspian warned her.

She turned over on her side and grumbled, "By all that's beauteous, fair and slightly, four morons do I sleep with nightly."

"What?" Caspian asked.

"Nothing."

* * *

Late the next morning, Caspian returned to the apartment on the 15th floor and found nobody was home except his wife, who stood by the stove pouring chopped potatoes into a large pan of boiling water.

"Well, how did the head shrinking session go?" Sterling asked.

"I can't get anywhere with him," Caspian said, "He has no idea why he's tried twice now, to get out of this building in his sleep."

"Maybe it's his subtle way of saying he wants to get away from you," she replied.

"Oh why don't you shut up?!" he asked as he strode over towards her, "I've had just about all I…" he shut up and looked and saw lying on the middle of the counter a medium sized chartreux cat looking up at him. He closed his eyes and looked again, and it was still there.

"What's that?" he demanded to know.

"What's what?" Sterling asked.

"What's it doing in here?" Caspian demanded to know.

"I brought her here," she answered, "If there's one thing I can't stand seeing it's animals that freeze to death." She glanced at him through the corner of her eye, "And if you so much as think of dropping her off the balcony, so help me I'll…"

"You're the one complaining about everybody eating and then you bring another mouth in this place," he said.

"Yeah well she can't possibly eat as much as you do," Sterling replied, "And if it has to come to a choice between the two of you, I'm sticking with the cat. Now, I advise that all of us try to get through this evening without clawing at one another's throats."

"Time will tell," Caspian said as he put his hand on the counter.

The cat hissed and stuck its claws out but missed, however did not miss in biting Caspian on the wrist, hard enough to draw blood. He screamed and drew back his hand to hit it, but he stopped when he felt the butcher blade at his throat.

"I warned you what would happen at a choice between the two of you," she told him, "Now, go get a couple bottles of wine and put them out on the balcony, they should be just about frozen just in time for the New Year tonight."

"Another year with you," Caspian grunted as he headed over to the wine rack, "I'd rather cut off my own head."

He saw her make a mad dash for the other side of the room leading to the bathroom.

"Where're you going?" he asked.

She stopped momentarily and answered, "To hide the mirror you use when you shave."

He continued mumbling something to himself and didn't notice the approaching quickening. Methos entered the apartment and stepped right behind his brother and said, "Caspian…"

"WHAT?!" Caspian jumped around and saw it was his brother instead of his wife.

Methos didn't move back but the expression on his face was nothing short of hilarious.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked.

Caspian knew it was a lost fight and insisted, "Nothing," and continued to repeat the word as he went back to what he was doing.

Methos turned and saw the cat on the counter and he looked back to his brother, "What's the matter, you couldn't find any horse meat?"

* * *

"The saying goes out with the old, in with the new," Sterling looked at her glass of champagne, then to the clock which was nearing midnight, then towards her favored brother-in-law, "The years have been coming and going with me for the last 600 years and I'll tell you it feels like the same damn long day, the only thing that's new is the company I keep at the current time."

Methos was about asleep but he managed to stay in the conversation, "Some way to start off the New Year, half the military on the other side of the world getting ready to bomb the daylights out of the Koreans who are getting ready to nuke everybody else. Who…" he opened his eyes and sat up in the chair, "Who was it that said they didn't know how World War III would be fought?"

"I don't remember," Caspian replied, "But he guaranteed World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones."

"Well that's the last thing I needed to hear," Sterling said, "Einstein anticipated _you_ surviving the third one…hey, seems rather quiet tonight, what's the matter, no coaching from the peanut gallery?" she turned around to see Kronos and Silas, "Oh no!"

Both men were asleep and deep enough in it to qualify as 'dead to the world'.

"Why am I not surprised?" she picked the cat up and went over to the kitchen.

"What time is it?" Methos asked.

Caspian picked up the clock from the coffee table and hit it a couple of times, "About three minutes till midnight."

Sterling went over to the balcony and looked down at the street. "It's odd, usually New Year's Eve is the noisiest night around here…but these last few weeks it's been quiet as the dead…and even tonight there's hardly anybody out there, just a few people walking around talking to themselves."

"Good riddance," Caspian commented, "That's all I have to say about it."

"Well if you hate people so much, why don't you live in Montana?" his wife asked him.

"If it didn't mean putting up with you for the rest of my days, I would!" he insisted.

"Oh, well," she put down her glass, "Nobody's keeping you here!"

He stood up, and stared down at her, he said nothing and headed over to where he kept his bags. Before he could open the first one, Sterling had crossed over to the kitchen, found her frying pan, stalked over to the bedroom and beat him in the back of the head with it. Methos was half asleep but heard the distinctive noise of cast iron mixing with human flash and skull. He opened his eyes and saw his brother lying on the floor and a frying pan thrown down beside his body.

"When he wakes up," Sterling said as she put on her coat, "Tell him I'm leaving his sorry ass. Nobody's ever walked out on me, and hell if I'm going to let him be the first."

Methos said nothing, but he understood. He'd had to put up with Caspian for over 3000 years and if he could've walked out on him as easily as his wife could, he would've; unfortunately Caspian always seemed to find him despite his attempts.

The door slammed behind Sterling as she left, and it was then that Methos realized she'd left something behind. He scooped the cat up in his arms and looked at it. It seemed to give him a similar, confused look to match his own.

"Looks like it's just us tonight," he said.

From the other side of the apartment he heard Kronos grumble something as he started to wake up.

"Maybe not."

Methos went over to his brother and looked down at him as he opened his eyes.

"Methos? What's going on?"

He glanced over at the clock and replied, "It's the new year, Brother."

Silas was also coming around at that time but before he could say anything, the three of them heard the noises Caspian was making as he regained consciousness. They went over to him and looked down at his body as it started moving and he slowly got to his feet.

"Who hit me?" he demanded to know.

"Your wife, or by this time, perhaps ex-wife," Methos answered.

"What?"

"Before she left she informed me to let you know that she left you," Methos said.

Caspian sneered, "She's always saying that, she can never leave me."

"The woman beat your brains out with a frying pan and stormed out the door," Methos told him.

"And _that_," he replied, "Is nothing new either. You wait, she'll be back."

The door opened and Sterling stepped in and started tugging at the buttons on her coat, "I'm back."

"What did I say?"

Sterling scowled at him, "I didn't come back because of you, Colombo…I came back to tell you I saw some people outside who don't look like they should be here."

"What're you talking about?" Kronos asked, "Who's here?"

Before Sterling could answer, the windows of the apartment exploded in a hail of bullets. Everybody screamed, Methos dropped on the floor to avoid being shot, Caspian grabbed Sterling and in the panic they both fell to the floor and he covered her, and Kronos made his way over to the window, avoiding the gunfire, and managed to get a look at several men down in the street with machine guns.

It was too dark to make out who or what they were, but he could hear one talking to another in a language he himself hadn't used in a long time, but he was fairly certain of what it was.

"What the hell is going on?" Caspian demanded to know.

"That's what I'm going to find out," Kronos said as he headed for the door.

He disappeared out into the dark corridor and down the stairwell while the others stayed in the apartment and tried to pull themselves together.

"Are you alright?" Caspian asked.

"Get your hands off me," she smacked him, "Yes I'm alright…Methos, how 'bout you?"

"I've been better," he replied.

Silas pulled Methos to his feet and the other two came over towards them. Nobody dared go over to the window but they listened for any further noises from down below. It was quiet, too quiet, they couldn't hear anything.

"Do you think he's alright?" Sterling asked.

"Kronos?" Methos asked, "He's too old for anything to hurt him, never mind kill him."

"You were saying, Sterling?" Caspian asked.

"Huh? Oh yeah, well I was trying to tell you, I got down to the front doors and I saw these three guys passing by. Now, I know this is a free country, anybody who wants to come here can…but with everything we'd been hearing about the war lately, I got very suspicious of seeing a bunch of Korean men running around the city in uniforms."

The men all looked at her.

"What uniforms?" Silas asked.

She didn't get a chance to answer because at that time they heard a strange thumping noise coming up the stairs.

"What's that?"

"I don't know but I'm going to find out," Caspian said as he headed towards the door.

"Wait for us."

The other three tailed behind him and they slowly crept out towards the head of the stairs. They heard a very strange, sickening, thump that seemed to occur with every step leading upward.

"I know what that sound is," Methos said.

"Me too," Caspian replied with a dreaded realization.

"Alright, genius," Sterling said, "Got any bright ideas?"

"Get back," he warned her.

They backed near the doorway and waited. Soon they could feel a quickening but they knew that didn't necessarily mean anything. They waited, nervously, anxiously, they waited until, even though it was dark, they were able to make out the figure of a person reaching the top of the stairs. He was hunched over, dragging another body up the stairs behind him. Caspian took two steps forward and pulled out a knife, sticking the blade at the center of the person's back.

"Don't move," he said.

"Get off of me," Kronos replied, sounding rather annoyed.

"What happened?" Caspian asked.

"The other two got away, but I got this one," he said, "Turn on the light."

"What?" Sterling asked, "And let them know we're in here? Not a chance in hell, I'll _get_ a light."

She stepped into the apartment and came back out with a flashlight. Turning it on they saw the body Kronos had dragged up 15 flights was a dead man, looking relatively young, and Korean. He was dressed in a soldier's uniform.

"I told you!" Sterling said to her husband, "I told you this would happen!"

Methos and Kronos looked across at one another, each wondering what the hell was going on.


	7. Chapter 7

"Let me guess," Kronos said once the initial shock of what had happened had worn off, "_This_ is what you two were squabbling about the other night?"

"You got it," Sterling answered, "I told Caspian if the Koreans had any brains to them, they wouldn't try nuking the country. You do that, radiation leaks out as a result, and yes it kills the people but it also kills the animals, contaminates the water, the crops die and the soil is no good to grow anything in. Everything dies, and for somebody of your standard that might make sense, but I think the North Koreans are too smart for that. They just said they would use their missiles to throw everybody off track."

"Well if they didn't want to kill off everything in this country," Methos said, "That would have to mean they're planning to use it for something themselves, wouldn't it?"

"Of course," Sterling replied.

"Alright, what?"

"Think about it, the North Korean population is approximately 23 million people."

"So?"

"So to them, living in a country that can house 300 million might seem very appealing right about now," she said and added in a smartass tone, "It did to the Pilgrims. And when that country is your sworn enemy and has been for the last 60 years, that's probably all the more to entice them to do it. Kill off the current residents without damaging the water or the soil or the food supply and you're onto something."

"How did they get here is another question," Methos said, "They couldn't have just dropped out from the sky."

"Couldn't they?" Caspian asked, "Sterling when you signed up to become a SEAL, what was one of the first things you did?"

"We spent five weeks in parachute training."

"All those damn jets," Caspian recalled, "Since just about anybody can get into this country it wouldn't surprise me if they sent some of their men on ahead to figure out what the military transportation would look like."

All eyes were now on him when he gave voice to his idea.

"You really think," Sterling started to say.

"North Korea hides everything from its own people, we shouldn't be surprised if they were able to build their aircraft to look like ours and we never found out," Caspian said, "It makes sense now…all those jets we were hearing, no doubt some of them did belong to the Air Force, but others had to have been carrying Korean soldiers on them."

"They fly over the city, then have the troops parachute down just past the lines, then they get their equipment together and come back into the city," Sterling realized.

"For all the trouble they went through to get here," Kronos said, "You'd think they'd be a bit more extravagant in how they attack."

"You mean like you would?" Sterling asked.

"I mean you simply don't fly halfway around the world just to take a few lucky shots at a window fifteen floors up."

"They're just screwing around right now," Sterling said, "Like a matador harassing a bull…this isn't the extent of the damage they can do."

They heard the noise but couldn't immediately identify what it was. But they saw the blinding flash of light through the windows and they knew what had happened. They all rushed out onto the balcony, forgetting about the snipers below, and saw on another street, its high rises were bursting into flames and smoke and starting to tumble.

"THAT," Caspian told his brother, "Is closer to the extent of what they can do."

* * *

Through the night, several of the buildings in the vicinity were bombed and fell apart or burnt up. There was no response from the police or the fire department so it was a safe guess the Koreans had already gotten to them first so any survivors couldn't call out for help. Nobody left the building or even the apartment because everybody was still dumbstruck by what had happened. This was something that nobody had seen coming. They stayed in there and watched as the city fell apart one piece at a time. The next day, Methos stood at the window watching the remains of the city smoldering while the others discussed what to do next. He noticed that only some of the high rises in the area had been annihilated, others were still left standing and they appeared to be safe for the time being. He was trying to figure out if there might be some pattern to what was going on.

"Their weapons are a bit more updated than ours, but I think we'll have a good chance against them," Caspian said.

"Well I'd say that's bloody obvious," his wife chimed in, "They can't kill us and even if they can, we won't stay dead for long."

"Shut up and come with me," he told her.

Methos turned and saw the two head over to a closet door. Opening it up the two went inside and came back out moving a very large steamer trunk. He noted that despite the two people carrying it putting all their strength into it, each looked about ready to collapse at a moment's notice under the pressure from whatever was in the trunk. They dropped it in the middle of the floor and each let out a strained noise of relief.

"What's that?" Kronos asked, the curiosity starting to grow in him.

Caspian and Sterling each took one side of the trunk's lid, undid the locks and tossed it up to reveal the trunk's contents.

It was filled with a wide variety of firearms: semi-automatics, full automatics, military rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, Lugers, service revolvers, and built into the lid was a place to store the boxes of ammunition.

"Looks like you've got everything but a bazooka," Methos said.

"One thing he couldn't get," Sterling told him, "But we do have one of these."

She fished down into the trunk and pulled out a hand grenade with the pin still in it. That in her hand was enough to draw a short yelp of surprise out of Methos and even Kronos, who yelled at her to put that thing down before she blew them all up.

Kronos grabbed hold of an old Soviet machine gun from World War II. "Got the ammunition for this?"

"Yes we have it," Sterling replied, "Not here though, on the 17th floor."

"The 17th floor?" Kronos asked, not sounding amused.

"I told you we own the whole building."

"Yes but you didn't say you had anything stored on any of the other floors."

"Well now that would be pretty idiotic wouldn't it?" she asked, "To own the whole building and only use one floor of it for anything. You're familiar with military firearms right?"

"Yes."

"Good, you load up the ones you can with the bullets that are in the trunk…Methos," she turned to him, "You help him. The rest of us will go collect the other ammo from upstairs."

"Why us?" Caspian asked.

"Because you're the one who put it all away and we'll need the ox to carry the drums for the Thompsons. You know how heavy those things are and with as many as you hoarded…"

"Alright, alright, we'll go, just shut up," Caspian said.

"Oh, but before we go," Sterling turned to Kronos, "That soldier you brought up here the other night when this all started."

"What about him?"

"Get him out of here."

"What?"

"Go on, Kronos, I've no use for dead people in my house, never did, never will," she told him, "And I don't need to be stepping over that thing to get up to the next floor. It's bad enough we'll never get the smell out of the linoleum, I should just be thankful it's winter and not the dead of August."

Kronos left the room and hauled the corpse back down the stairs, its body making quicker thumping noises now than it did the previous night. Once it was gone, Kronos returned to the 15th floor and Caspian and the others headed up to the 17th floor. Methos watched as the three of them disappeared out the door, leaving him alone in the room with Kronos. There was an awkward silence between them and neither looked at the other. Kronos grabbed an M-1 carbine rifle and a box of bullets and started loading it.

Methos fished a Jericho pistol out of the mixture and found a cartridge for it.

"When I envisioned the end of the world, this isn't quite what I had in mind," Kronos finally said, breaking the silence.

Methos didn't say anything at first, trying to think of what to say, then decided on, "How far do you think it's spread?"

"Well they can't all be in just this place, I imagine they've spread their men over different parts of the country. Let's see, 23 million North Koreans, probably half of them male…one third of that half would probably be too young to engage in war, and another third of the half would be too old. So one sixth of 23 million is…"

"Roughly 3.8 million soldiers spread over the country," Methos said, "Not figuring how many of the men in the right age category actually are soldiers. Any way you look at it, it's sickening."

"I wonder," Kronos said, "Just how far it _has_ spread."

"I don't know," Methos replied, "We know the police are dead here, if they got to Washington, the elected officials are probably long gone as well, no telling how many innocent civilians have been massacred, and the Armed Forces…they've already shipped most of them over to Korea, and the Koreans came here instead."

"However," Kronos told him, "Probably what they did is keep half of the troops _in_ Korea so the American troops can't pull out and return here, and sent the other half here while the country is without a sufficient department of defense."

"But do you really think Sterling could be right about them wanting the land for their own uses?"

"You've been to Korea, would you want to stay there?"

"I don't even like staying _here_," Methos said.

"Then why _are_ you here?" Kronos asked.

"Because Caspian won't go overseas anymore," Methos answered, "I always have to come to him."

Kronos glanced at Methos through the corner of one eye, "And how long is always?"

"What?" Methos asked.

"You said you always have to come to him…how long have you been coming to him?"

"Ever since 1923 when…"

Methos realized he'd said too much. He quickly turned around and saw that same old murderous glare in Kronos' eyes.

"You've kept in contact with him for 88 years, seven years since you and I last met in World War I and you never bothered to contact _me_ to let me know you were alive!?"

Before Methos could get a word out, he felt two hands grip his throat, trying to crush his larynx or break his neck, whichever came first.

* * *

Caspian, Sterling and Silas returned down to the 15th floor, all of them exhausted, Caspian and his wife each carrying two large tool boxes filled to the brim with ammunition and Silas carrying near a dozen 100 round drum magazines for Tommy guns under his arms.

"I don't know why you had to spend so much time hoarding such incompetent weapons," Sterling said to Caspian.

"I should be asking myself instead why I've spent so much time keeping around such an incompetent wife," he replied.

Sterling swung her toolbox to hit him in the back of the head, "You know those full automatic Thompsons aren't any good, especially the ones with the drums. They keep jamming all the time which is why you never go through the whole drum at once. Some full automatic, seems to function just like you."

Caspian swung around and was about to bash the toolbox he carried against her face but before he could so much as spit at her, they heard a ruckus coming from inside the apartment. Everybody dropped what they had and hurried in and they saw in the kitchen, Kronos had Methos' neck in a death grip and had Methos pinned against the kitchen sink. He was too absorbed in what he was doing to notice Methos' arm reaching out, just barely grabbing the handle of the paring knife which he proceeded to drive into Kronos' back, giving Methos enough of a distraction to get away. The knife was very shallowly thrust into Kronos' flesh and caused little more than a superficial pinprick; he lunged at Methos, trying to grab him again. He just managed to grab Methos by the back of his shirt but lost his grip when he felt somebody grab _him_ from behind.

Sterling grabbed the back of Kronos' jeans with one hand and with the other she grabbed hold of his hair, short though it was, and jerked him back and threw him face first against the wall.

"Get off of him!" Caspian told her. She let go and stepped away, Kronos turned around and Caspian punched him right in the kisser and sent him railing back against the wall, and he asked Kronos, "What in the hell is wrong with you?" as he grabbed him and started shaking him, hitting his head against the wall, threatening to break the plaster.

Sterling disappeared around the corner, went over to the closet, and returned wielding an old but recently sharpened tomahawk and she started yelling in an old Indian language as she swung for Kronos' neck but narrowly missed him. She did not, however, miss the wall behind him and the blade was buried into the wall by a good three inches.

Everybody was screaming something at everybody else, but amongst it all, Caspian, as he pinned Kronos in a full nelson, screamed at his wife, "Get rid of that thing! Everybody shut up! Silas," he shoved Kronos towards his other brother, "Get him out of here, Sterling, you go with him, take Kronos up to the 16th floor and you know why."

She nodded and grabbed one side of Kronos, Silas grabbed the other side and they hauled him away with him screaming and writhing. It was after they had left and all the noise had quieted down that Caspian realized Methos was gone. He looked around the apartment and couldn't find his brother, and then he heard something. He put his ear against the bathroom door and heard Methos talking to himself quietly and it sounded like he was hitting something. Caspian opened the door and saw Methos facing one of the walls, not even looking at it but looking downward, and he kept saying "Why?" and every time he said it he beat his hand weakly against the wall.

"Methos, are you alright?"

Methos turned and looked at Caspian. His eyes were blank, like the night before when he'd almost jumped off the balcony because he'd been sleepwalking. He took two steps and strode over to Caspian and asked him as he all but collapsed on his brother, "Why…why did you have to tell Kronos I was here? Why did you have to send for him? Why did you have to tell him I was alive? Why," he started pummeling Caspian with his fists but all the fight seemed to have gone out of him, "Why didn't you let him keep thinking I was dead? Because he sure as hell wishes now that I was!"

* * *

The day turned into evening. It was pitch dark shortly after five in the afternoon. The stairwell leading up to the 16th floor was dark as well. The door opened and Sterling stepped into the room carrying a tray. The room in its entirety looked like a room at the psycho ward; bars on the windows, a couple of gurneys along the walls, a damn uncomfortable bed much like the ones from the old hospitals, all very bleak and dreary, perfect for its current occupant. She looked over and saw Kronos confined on the bed wearing a straightjacket and tape across his mouth to keep him quiet. He was staring daggers at her.

She just laughed and said, "James Cagney looked a hell of a lot cuter in that position than you do right now." She set the tray down on the dresser by the bed, revealing that the menu for the night was borscht. Sterling grabbed a corner of the tape on Kronos' mouth and warned him before yanking it off, "Try and bite me, and I'll hurt you." She jerked the tape off and grabbed the tray. Setting it down over his lap, she picked up the spoon and added, "Try and spit it out and you'll be swallowing your teeth next."

He glared at her but didn't say what he was thinking. Instead he opened his mouth and only yelled when she deliberately hit the metal spoon against his teeth. Otherwise, there was no communication between the two.

The hours passed slowly and when it was going on 9 o' clock, Caspian came up to the room and looked in to see what was going on. Kronos, still fit to be tied in the straitjacket, had somehow managed to fall asleep on the bed, and Sterling had done likewise in the chair, albeit in a very uncomfortable position.

What he couldn't figure out was why his approaching quickening hadn't awoken either one of them. But given the recent circumstances he supposed nothing should surprise him. He went over to his wife and poked her, she awoke with a start and said, still half asleep, "They took my ring." She looked and saw her husband, "Oh, it's you, for a minute I thought it was somebody."

Caspian pointed over to Kronos, "Has he given you any trouble?"

"Na, I ground up some barbiturates and put them in his soup," Sterling replied, "He's tried for hours and can't get out of that damn straitjacket…when do we get to hang him by his heels over a tank of sharks?" then she asked, "How's Methos?"

With a huff, he answered, "He's calmed down now…finally."

"It's been seven hours," Sterling said as she looked at her watch.

"It took nearly six hours for him to eat anything…at which point he got the Clorazepate surprise with dinner."

"Ah," she nodded, "Makes sense now. But what the hell happened down there?"

Caspian shook his head, "These things never change. Kronos still blames Methos for leaving him."

"Well…" an idea seemed to hit Sterling, "How long did you say Kronos was spent trying to get out of that pit? A thousand years?"

"About that."

"Nobody to see, nobody to talk to, I can see how that would drive somebody crazy…the question, what does it drive somebody who's _already _crazy?"

"I don't know," Caspian said.

"Well think about it, Caspian…that kind of life for a thousand years is going to make a guy a little claustrophobic. And now…" she waved her arm, gesturing towards what lay outside the window, "All those buildings destroyed, all those people dead. Have you heard anything?"

"I can't get anything on the radio, nothing but static."

"We've lost contact with the outside world, we're all alone in this it seems," Sterling told him, "I think he's reverting into his claustrophobia and still sees Methos as a traitor for putting him into that position in the first place."

"I think we made a mistake reuniting them," Caspian said, "Kronos is never going to get over this, he's always going to have it in for Methos for leaving him."

"Freud wouldn't touch this guy with a 30 foot couch," she replied, "His separation issues exceed anything any psychiatrist in this world would believe. Of course, Freud's no expert on knowing anything, he's an Austrian, he called America a giant mistake. Granted, now it might look that way but it had more promise when he was alive."

Caspian glared at his wife.

"Hey, I learned something while staying in the madhouse…" she looked around the room, "In fact…" she got up from the chair and laid down on a gurney and looked up at him, smiling, "This about looks like where we first met. All we'd need now is one of those electro shock gadgets and you could recreate the first time we laid eyes on each other."

"Not now, dumbbell," he told her.

"Well answer me this, if those two morons can't be in the same room together without trying to kill each other, what _are_ we going to do with them?"

"I'll figure something out," Caspian said, "I usually do."


End file.
